Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-07-30
USE OF FERTILIZERS.
AN IMPORTANT CHAPTER FOR
AGRICULTURISTS.
The Necessity of Keeping Up the
Fertility of the Soil-The Best
Methods of Doing 1t.

Methods of Doing 1t.
There is nothing of more Importance to
the California farmer at the present time
than to change present methods of agri-
culture by the adoption of the use of fer
tilizers in such quantity and kinds as to
prevent the impoverishment of our lands.
The custom that has heretofore been in
vogue, as frequently remarked by the
RECoRD-UNIoN, to constantly take from the
soil without any return of plant
food by artificial process, will in time bring
an end to profitable cultivation, and make
poisoning heritage an Improbable
waste. The wonderful prodigality of Ma
ture in providing California with seeming
inexhaustible soil and matchless climate
for producing vegetable growth, must not
be presumed upon as an intention on
the part of the benefcent Creator to be a
carte blanche for mans perpetual and
unstinted abuse of that glorious bounty.
We have already presumed too much,
enough to constitute an objectionable sin,
and its fully time to commence to consider
and perform our duty in the matter of Civ
ing back to our lands in proportion as we
take from their strength, in order that they
may be perpetuated in quality, not only
for the good of present owners, but for their
succeeding generations.
The following remarks of Hon. j. J. II.
Gregory, at recent meeting Of the Mas
sachusetts Farmers Club, will be of inter
est upon this important subject:
NATURES WAY OF MATURING.
Now, Natures way of manuring is how,
is what? She drops her leaves, her
twigs, her bark and her decaying vegeta-
ton anywhere she pleases on the surface
of the earth. These are decomposed, and
the rocks below them are decomposed
also, by the action Of the elements and all
plant food is made in that way. Well,
now, if we are going back to natures
primitive, original way, we must go a
good way back of where we are now /
speak of our present farming methods
Everything that is put on in the shape OF
manures is different from natures way
1t is artificial. We do not drop things on
the surface of the earth to have them de-
compose slowly, and to have them find the
crops or not, just as it happens, but we APP
ply manures to the soil and work them in
with harrows and cultivators. We put on
so much for this crop, and so much for
that crop. We say that such ground is
adapted to such crop, and such to an
other. That is our way of farming, and il
is artificial Our way of manuring is arti.
fetal. If our fertilizers are artificial. so is
the form of barnyard manure. 1t is de-
| parture from the natural way of feeding
plants. If the fertilizer man is concerned
in this way, he can turn around and show
them that they are concerned in the same
manner.
HAYWARD MANURE AN ADVANCE STEP
Now, the use of barnyard manure is one
| step in advance of the natural method
Decomposition in it is carried further than
it is by the natural method. 1t is quicker
process and more concentrated than the
natural process, and plant feeding by fer
same line of progress. What are the ele-
ments of barnyard manure? The same as
you find in these plants which nature
makes. Barnyard manure is made by the
animals eating these plants, and in that
manure is found the elements of the plants.
What are fertilizers ? Fertilizers have in
them the same elements that BARNARD
manure has in it, only in a more concen-
trated form. Barnyard manure, in turn
is more concentrated than natures wav Of
decomposing various plants on the surface
of the earth.
THE cows STOMACH A LABORATORY.
Now, we talk about fertilizers as being
the product of the laboratory and an arti
fclal thing. Did you ever think of 8
cows stomach as laboratory? 1t is, and
the digestive process is going on as if the
food were in the laboratory. The manure
is the product of chemical processes; they
are not more such products than is barn
yard manure, which has passed through
the laboratory ofthe COW. There is won
derful arrangement of the digestive organs
of COWS, horses, sheep and oxen, and ii
them chemistry does its work The pro
cess Is the same in both cases, only we have
more bulk in the case of the animal pro
duct, and less bulk in case of fertilizers
The difference is simply matter of bulk
! And when you take into consideration the
elements in barnyard manures, and the
elements in fertilizers, they are the same
| precisely. The essential elements are the
same in all their variety, but one is merely
more concentrated, and that is all the diff
ference there is in chem. You can take
barnyard manure, and from it manufact
ure commercial fertilizer. 1t can all be
changed by simple process You can gel
from the manure nitrogen and phosphorit
acid and potash, as well as from the phos
phate rock of South Carolina, or from the
bones or flesh of amin as, or from any other
source whatever.
| BONES AND FLESH.
When you come to look at it, YOU fine
that the bones and flesh are made from the
very same food that MAKES tho mamma